


tilt; chs.

by arrowthroughtheheart



Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Angst, Drug Addiction, Gen, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Mentioned Lee Minho | Lee Know, Minor Character Death, Minor Original Character(s), Minor Violence, Non-Graphic Violence, Suicidal Thoughts, almost inspired by everything i've ever read and or watched, please beware while reading, this is a whole rollercoaster of emotions and narrative
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-31
Updated: 2019-08-31
Packaged: 2020-10-04 02:24:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20463476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arrowthroughtheheart/pseuds/arrowthroughtheheart
Summary: You're used to it; growing up surrounded by fights and mentally unstable people telling you how much of a demon you are and how much they'd slit your throat open at any given chance, and then meeting a boy like Wooyoung who are exactly the same - all you had to do was pull a little trigger and there he goes; blending in like all the other sadistic hoes in your life.You wonder how much it'll take for San to curl into a ball and roll down the same road. Maybe this is it, maybe this is his psychotic awakening and it's all caused by you, yet again. What an honor.





	tilt; chs.

**Author's Note:**

> hi so um.  
idk what this is even about? all i know is i took several months writing this down and thinking of the perfect way to end it, only to end up still not knowing how to end it - and i've went through major editing and shit but i'm half blind so forgive me if there's still mistakes, and;  
PLEASE READ BEARING IN MIND THAT i wish none of this happens to people in real life and this is truly heartbreaking and horrible. if you or anyone you know go through any of this, help them. find help.  
but i still hope you enjoy it, so.

The universe are against each other.

You’re sure of it, even if it was unknown to you where or who you got that idea from, but it doesn’t change a single thing. It’s the one thing that is planted deep inside the roots of your brain, and you would never change it for the world. 

You know how you sound. Pessimistic. Crazy, even; like what that one kid called you in elementary school when you insulted their favorite superhero for spitting out lies about humanity coming together to obtain  _ peace _ \- or whatever it was they were talking about. Bullshit, your seven year-old self thought. Not for the fact that the people who made this movie were really hoping for world peace, but to think that humans would ever come together in level-headedness to obtain said world peace.

And so is the universe.

You know how uneven they are, and yet, here you are; being the one piece standing at the exact point where the chess-board would either tilt or come back down in reverse and make some major changes. That, or no change at all.

Either way, life threw you some other pieces they hoped you’d fix along the way, and gives you no benefit whatsoever from it. There were times like back when you were an elementary school student, where you  _ tried _ . You really did. It was your first encounter with your - what you didn’t know back then - everlasting fate, it seems like, and you took great pride in acknowledging the fact that you handled it pretty well.

Handling things pretty well, though, is not very high up on your list of achievements these days.

Not ever since you, yourself, needed to be handled and cared for as if you’re a precious porcelain doll that would shatter if anyone gets close to even  _ breathe  _ against you the wrong way. You crave to be cradled in someone’s arms when the bad, bad,  _ bad  _ tsunami of wanting to die washes upon you and your pitiful soul, and you just want someone to kiss you goodnight softly while waiting for you to fall into deep slumber before feeling like it’s safe enough for them to embark with you on the journey to dreamland.

But who would ever do that?

Your mother is sick.  _ Inside out _ , if you dare say out loud, since she’s not just actually sick in the head from her deadly brain tumour, she’s also;  _ sick  _ in  _ the head.  _ Sick and twisted, with haunting dark shadows waiting to jump on her within every other twists and turns of her life, laughing at her wrong - and right - decisions. Which also brought her to twisting your neck every time you say something even slightly  _ too  _ miserable for her taste, and bringing a hand up to your hair every time you give her all the medicines she’s supposed to digest. ‘I don’t need medicine. My fucking child is insane, people don't know that. It's not me. It's never me, I’m just tired of your…  _ bullshit _ .’

You can say that her life is definitely filled with twists and turns.

Those words would hurt. More than anything else, it would make your stomach churn in disgust, not of her, not of her mental instability. Of yourself. And why the world decided to put you in that place, and not anyone else who’s life is enjoyable enough they could tolerate a sick and dying mother. Why, out of everyone, you? Why?

“You-” 

Your mother’s voice croaked from the distance of her slightly opened room door, and you can see her rage-filled eyes glance at you. It startled you for a second, before you regain your composure and realize how useless her pair of hands and legs are. You’re grown up now. You know better than to cower on the corner of your room while you wait for the torture to be over.

“I’m… I need the medication- medic- I need those  _ filthy  _ things you usually give me after my food, give me it, now,” she stutters over her own words, obviously a bit high from the portion of food you gave her and the medicines she  _ already  _ drank a few minutes ago.  _ Oh now she’s going to forget things quickly, too?  _ You grimace as you flung your bag over your shoulder, not giving your mother a second look.

“Hey!” she croaks out again, a little bit more demanding this time. The aging of time evident in her voice and tired eyes and the way her little bunch of hair left peeks out of the corners of her hat designed to hide her thinning hair, and she threw her empty plastic bottle over to the door, hoping to get your attention. Worked poorly for your mother, though, as the door slams shut instead, and her calls turned weaker from the heavy wood covering the way sound travels through the air that is now not around you anymore. It was blocked. And you’re ignoring her calls, now.

You didn’t claim to  **not** be an asshole.

“Well, you look terribly dead,” San mumbles, face in between his left hand and his notebook. Detention is literally draining the life out of him, but this one friend(?) of yours always finds his way right back into this exact same class, with the exact same teacher dozing off in the corner of the room, with a cigarette that was long gone but is sure as hell enjoyed until its last moments since; you can still smell the excessive smoke on his slightly ripped leather jacket and just around San in general.

He’s a living, breathing, mess; and you like him for it. Like,  _ like  _ like. Like really, really,  _ really  _ like. The reason behind your cravings to be cuddled underneath the moonlight seeping in from your cracked window because none of you can afford to pay someone to fix it but neither of you wants to let your finger bleed from trying to fix it on your own, the reason behind you smiling to yourself before bed, forgetting all the problems with your own family momentarily - and believing that you can build a better one with this boy right in front of your nose.

It took you a second to realize what he said and that he’s talking to you, but when you did your eyebrows shot right up to reciprocate his attitude around you.

“Well, you look terribly high yourself, Sir, and if you don’t mind me asking-”

“I mind,” he cuts you off, eyes gazing right into yours; and at this exact moment, you question yourself and all of your barbaric beliefs about the world and its lack of beauty. Because, holy heck is this boy one of those things you’re so pessimistic on finding. But here he is. Looking as perfect as ever. Looking right into your eyes.  _ Cutting your sentences before you’re able to finish them.  _ Wow, so attractive.

“I don’t like it when problematic kids try to avoid topics by avoiding talking about themselves,” San continues, pulling himself up with a slight stifled groan, rubbing his eyes to get rid of the little fireflies beneath his eyelid from pressing them to the table for too long. “So in return, I don’t like you if all you’ll ever do is avoid whatever it is killing you inside.”

You scoff from the irony of it all. From all of the unlucky students who could’ve said those sentences to you, it  _ has  _ to be Choi San?

Drug, alcohol, weed - mention whatever you’ve seen on the table, please - addicted; Choi San? The one everybody knows because of his brighter than the sunlight’s intentions to slowly kill himself and, quote unquote, ‘enjoy his ride to hell’?

“Is that why you’re so addicted to killing yourself?” you ask, smaller than a whisper. Not in fear of setting unknown fire within the boy you’re sitting next too, or for him to  _ finally  _ be discovered by your napping teacher in the corner. It just felt like the right sound to ask this sensitive question in, and you felt shivers climbing up your spine from the eye contact he gave you for that statement - or question, as you like to refer to it. 

“Am I not obvious enough for you,  _ doll _ ?” San tries his best to frown at you, uniting his eyebrows together in the middle of his forehead but missing the point as his question sounds a bit too… fond, for someone who is making fun of another person. The corner of his lips curled up into a little smile he himself made, as you hadn’t replied with any audible words yet. “Because if your eyes are a bit  _ fogged _ up, I can show you what I want to do, make it crystal clear,” he slurs, and you were a bit playfully offended when you misheard what he said and thought he called your eyes fucked up or something.

“My eyes are fine, Mr. Choi, thank you for the eye check-up offer, though,” you glance at him up and down - well, down until the table covers a half of his body down, of course - before focusing on making your own smile as attractive as you can. You don’t want to lose to the beauty in front of you, and even if you did, you want to make sure you go down dragging Choi San by the collar of his shirt.  _ He’s just that tempting, isn’t he? _

He hums, eyelid opened just a millimeter above his waterline just about enough to let him process who he’s been talking to - you’re guessing - and he lets his smile rest on his face for a few more seconds before both of his arms reach out to yours, gripping your shoulder harshly. It shocks you for a second, before your brain made it made sense with normalizing the fact that San is  _ never  _ not high. “Shame. If you’re ever going to visit for an eye check-up, though,” he releases his - surprisingly - strong grip before his head falls onto your lap and he makes himself feel comfortable. “Please, do tell.”

You had little to zero idea about why San talked like an old-man to you that morning, noon, and all the way until the end of detention; something you grew to like a few months prior ever since your eyes landed on his slightly red hair and your interest piqued as if your life wasn't busy enough for a boy to be added on top of its list.

But then again, you’re the piece that could tilt the entire board game. Why not bring a friend with you when you fall down?

You ask yourself these questions as you take in the view of the sleeping boy on your lap, his forehead creasing from - what it looks like - pain and a distasteful dream, maybe; as you caress the soft strands of hair covering his strongly shut eyes. You might consider his shameless invite. You really might.

The beeping that signals your mother’s vital organs’ status keeps on beeping, which is a good sign; of course, since you don’t want to be  _ that  _ much of an asshole and groans about why your mother is alive in front of a professional doctor who seems to be very worried about your state of being.

Of course, you look homeless - not for the first time in a long while, what’s new, Doc? - and hungry, maybe. Okay, the hunger part is not only how you look; you’re also actually hungry. But everything else is definitely just the doctor judging you from the cover. You have a home, you’re not homeless. You showered this morning since you were supposed to go to school - late, since you want to meet your prince charming again in detention, so you purposely depart late from your humble abode - before your mother decided to stop breathing.

You told yourself, maybe you didn’t want to lose your mother anyways, since you rushed to the hospital as fast as you can with extra tears painting your cheeks for the dramatic after-effect of almost losing a mother; but then you settled with your anxiety and how you don’t want to be accused of killing a weak, old lady for whatever money she has left when she doesn’t have any. That would be a shit way to spend your life in prison.

“Do you-” the doctor begins, wearing his glasses as if you’ll look less pitiful if he does look at you through them, “have anyone to go home with? Your home’s pretty far-”

“I’ll stay until my mother wakes up, please and thank you, Mr. Doctor.” 

You don’t know how those words slipped right out of your mouth, since you’re sure as hell pissed off by your own answer. Wait here? Until  _ she  _ wakes up? What, and miss  _ presumably _ another whole day without meeting the love of your life who is probably bored to death being all alone in detention class?

“She won’t get any better anytime soon, kid,” he sighs, putting down the board he’s holding the whole time, and your nose scrunches up in confusion. “I know you’re not going to afford a surgery, and an alternative healing takes even longer than a surgery to heal - and I don’t even know if you can afford alternative healing,” the doctor quits whatever message he’s trying to convey, looking outside where your eyes are looking.

The forests look dewy, calm, and cold, and you can almost feel the droplets of water from the trees’ leaves falling down on your feet as you walk through them to the front door of this almost abandoned hospital. You don’t know what to do. You don’t want to know what to do.

“I can walk,” you whisper, as soft as you can. This confuses the doctor even further, and he squints his eyes to try and look at you. “Sorry?” he tries to lean towards you to hear your voice better, but his chair squeaks and it broke the trance you were in. Your eyes were filled with panic, the anxiety you tried to press down is now jumping right back up in a scary spiral, and you turn your head to finally look at the doctor for the first time.

His eyes are filled with everything yours don’t have; sympathy, curiosity, and confusion. But you never let anyone into your head, and you’re not about to start looking for help.

You open your mouth, a small fake smile decorating the corner of your lips. But at the same time it becomes overwhelming to you, the sight of your mother fighting on the brink of death on one side and the seemingly nice doctor - the first one in forever - on the other side, the beeping sounds of your mother’s heart beat going inside your head from one side and your own pants of panic ringing inside your ear from the other; and you clasped a hand over your mouth. Your eyes feel warm and watery, and at the twist of emotion on the doctor’s face, you shake your head.

With a final, pathetic whine, you left the room. Not looking back at the confused atmosphere you’ve created for both yourself and the young doctor who is still looking at your back, not looking back at your responsibility which you never asked for but still had - weirdly - emotional connections to, you looked back at nothing.

The doctor was about to race your own rushed footsteps to catch you and calm you down, but his name rang in the empty hallway a few seconds before you pushed the exit door open and is engulfed by the silence of the early mornings.

“Doctor Song, wait a moment!”

Pain.

All you felt on your feet was pain.

You’ve spent all of your transportation money to rush your mother to that hospital miles and miles away from home and your dead-environment, where you can find nothing but your school nearby home; and you struggled and fought a long way to get back home, and you fumbled with your keys for a bit before actually opening the door to get inside and pass out on your kitchen.

You didn’t realize you slept on a sitting position all the way to the morning, your aching back asking you to rest on your bed until this day is over, and your legs that are asleep not cooperating with you and your busy hands who are supposed to make cereal. Is it  _ really  _ that hard to feed yourself?

A few moments after breakfast, you spend almost five minutes alone in struggling to stand up, and another five minutes kicking your legs here and there - with an addition of a few short seconds of crying before you snap back into reality - and another half an hour for you to brush yourself clean from all the germs of the hospital. You didn’t realize you were ignoring your buzzing phone this whole while, as you were focused on how stiff your whole body felt, and how on fire your muscles are from switching between running and walking and running and walking to almost walking on all fours from being tired and rushing as quick as you can when you finally see the fence of your beloved, home. You realized who you were ignoring, though, as a loud honk startles your stretching session.

_ Shit, he’s here,  _ you curse to yourself, ignoring how hard you slammed your TV remote on the floor after turning it off. You had a short debate to yourself about just ignoring his goddamn honks, but then again, after a few short seconds, you pitied the neighbors enough in this nice Monday morning and it made you walk outside. You slam the door shut behind you, but you’re not moving from your position in front of your heavy wooden door. You cross your arms in front of your chest in an attempt to assert dominance, but the sound of his car door slamming shut made you flinch a bit.

“Let’s go, what’s taking you so long?” the older boy in front of you frowns, not liking how you’re still standing your ground after this whole time. “I told you, I’m not going to go anywhere with you anymore, didn’t I?” 

_ And you hated how weak you sound every time you look straight into his eyes. _

He scoffs, runs a hand over his greyish hair before he settles with raising an eyebrow. Cocky, with arrogance, and you hate the fact that he feels like he’s already won the battle before you even shot your first bullet. “Oh, come on, now,” he swings the fence open, and you can feel yourself shifting backwards only for your heels to slam on the door. 

“Wooyoung, don’t come any closer. This is my house and this whole land is my property, so would you please-”

“So what if it is, huh? Technically, in this small-minded world, the guy you go out with every now and then is your  _ boyfriend _ , no?” Wooyoung tilts his head, and it all happens so fast that he took the words right out of your mouth - his hands on your skin but it was as harsh as he can make it, his tight grip over your neck but it was with less and less affection each time, and this one time it’s just with his surprisingly hidden power he’s never shown you before. Wooyoung drags you away from the door, and another pathetic whine leaves your mouth as it reminds yourself of your encounter with the doctor earlier in the day. Maybe you can ask him to accuse Wooyoung with assault, one day, since this could  _ really  _ leave a bruise. The doctor seems pretty nice, too, but you’ve learned to not trust anyone, so. 

“Let me-” you struggle against Wooyoung’s death grip, attempting to make him let go of you in any way you can while still getting enough proof that he assaulted you inside the fences of your own home. “Why?” he asks. “Unless you want everyone to know that I’m not the only one? Do you want that?”

You like to  _ think _ about how dumb Wooyoung is, and how he thinks you’re getting played into his game when honestly; you’re just that good of an actor. Another chain of protests escape your tightly sealed lips, and your hopes of  _ not  _ turning blue from Wooyoung’s death grip rises again as you see a mother and her child walking across the street. 

Their eyes are obviously on you, and for some reason your mind decided that the two of you might look like you’re on a friendly banter with each other - so you gave it your all to elbow Wooyoung on his stomach and run.  _ Weirdly enough, the older doesn’t sound pained at all. He did let you go, anyways, so that’s what matters. _

“Ma’am!” you run as fast as you can to catch up with the lady and her daughter, almost immediately kneeling in front of them. “Please, please, help me. I won’t let you get hurt by him, but please don’t let that guy take me away, he- he came into my garden and dragged me outside-”

“Hush!”

You froze when the lady scolds you harshly, her eyes opening as wide as it can get as she loops her arms around her daughter’s hips and she lifts her up as she walk faster. “Don’t talk about your marriage life in front of a kid, miss.  _ My  _ kid,” the lady frowns, looking in between your confused face and Wooyoung - probably - who is walking up to you in his smug, I-told-you-so face. You’ve never been more scared for your life.

“M-ma’am, I’m not-”

The sound of leather covers meeting your skin harshly as Wooyoung shoves you into the backseat provides more than necessary details for your last encounter with your possessive, over-protective, and borderline psychotic  _ ex-boyfriend.  _

It wasn’t supposed to happen, and yet it did. It happens again and again, and you wish you didn’t put your finger on the trigger and pulled it upon Wooyoung, wished you didn’t say the words that put you in this mess while still being hopelessly on the tip of his fingers, for him to use whenever he still needs.

He’s a mess, you’re a mess.

But now you’re dealing with another mess you’ve been stringing with you these past few weeks, and you can’t help the small yet visible cringe every time you meet his eyes.

San threw you a tiny smile underneath his  _ still  _ half-opened eyelids, sliding into the chair beside you as he sighs in relief and one of his backbone cracks. It sounds uncomfortable, but the smile he gave you say otherwise so you don't question him at all. That’s the first time you’ve seen him smile so much.

“You’re awfully early,” he starts first, as usual, noticing that you’re even more quiet than you usually are as you fiddle with your thumbs. “Hm,” a hum escapes your lips. “Couldn’t sleep last night.”

“Isn’t that supposed to make you wake up even  _ later _ ?”

“Not when you know you won’t sleep.”

And then it went back to being quiet, with San’s suffocating hint of smoke every time he breathes air in and let out the exact thing that is killing him in the form of nicotine-filled-smoke - but who are you to complain about what he does with his life. Your prince charming is sitting beside you by his own accord, not in the detention room, and he looks calm. If only your heart was as calm as his that day, things would've went much better.

“You know,” San leans on his right palm, elbow propped on the table, and it took you all you had to raise your eyebrows while maintaining a smile. “I kinda miss you making googly eyes for me,” he summons a giggle, and that sound is something new from Choi San - and normally you would've been squealing and will hardly be able to control your goofy smile; but now you settle for a giggle on your own.

His eyes travel to the bruises on your face and the cut on your lips, yet again says nothing.

_ The world needs more people like him, or so help me God- _

“What? Are you okay?” he proceeds, and for a second you swore to yourself, almost retracting all of your holy prayers about San. "What do you mean, am I okay?" A confused mumble slips past your blood-tinted lips before you're able to stop them.

“I don’t know, doll, you’re usually so in love with me,” he continues, “these past few weeks.”

See, he knows his priorities.

God really put extra work on this one.

“Ah. I really like the term you used,” you finally gathered enough courage to smile from your heart, and this smile reaches the creases of your eyes and made your dark brown irises sparkle with joy. “That’s a term I use  _ only  _ for you.”

He lets out a chuckle. Usually, your anti-pixie-dust-and-any-form-of-happiness-self would frown at the word ‘chuckle’ and the in-depth explanation someone would have to give you for using the term alone, but this time - surprisingly - you used it on your own accord, deciding on the word chuckle to describe what San just did since; nothing else really gets any closer to what just happened. Your brain literally just threw the word out of your full library of words to describe a Choi San.

And you just spent five full seconds to ponder about the word on its own.  _ Fantastic. _

“Sweet Jesus,” he took in a deep breath, “and here I thought I lost you for a second.”

“Why would you think that? You don't even want to get rid of me.”

“Is that so?”

“Of course, so,” you look up from your recent activity - which is fiddling with your thumb, you never thought it’d be so fun to do - to converse with him like a normal human being. You can see his half-opened eyes better, this way; and by now you notice the fact that he no longer looks drunk. Or high. He looks sober - enough for someone who spends day and night in things that corrupt himself from the inside - and quite awake, actually, since it  _ is  _ his first time showing up to school this early. You wonder why.

“You’re talking to yourself again,” San cuts off your train of thoughts, and you made an offended sound. He’s not incorrect, and there’s going to be no time in the world where you doubt Choi San’s observation skills, but it really hurts, this one time. You’re yet to know why. “ _ And _ ?”

He flinches at your question, unable to decipher why you asked it the way you did. You provide him with no answer, though, as you take in a deep breath. “Why, why are you- why are you sitting next to me? You’re not usually  _ situated  _ over here,” your index finger twirls around above your slightly folded arms, signaling the seat San is currently sitting on. He looks flustered. Confused, even; and this time he looks so much like a broken-hearted puppy it  _ almost  _ hurts you.

You  **do** claim to be an asshole, though.

“O-oh, I’m sorry, I thought- I just saw you alone, and thought you’d be lonely?” San stutters. It took you awhile to squint your eyes to look at him, since;  _ wow, why is he so awkward around me when he’s not either drunk or a half-dead?  _ He looks and feels so absurdly different that it makes you want to punch yourself.

Yes, you’re lonely. But since when do you feel the need to open up? “San, you’re not a student of this class,” you smile at him, reaching inside your back while mumbling every prayer ever to wish for your fingers to find at least one book for you to prove your point to him - oh, dear  _ God _ , thank you - you sigh as you pull a single notebook from your bag. It looks frequently used enough, thankfully, but it’s actually just because you never take it out from the goddamn bag. Too much work for you.. 

“I was trying to be nice?” he snaps back this time, eyes narrowing to focus on your  _ painfully  _ obvious fake smile. Though, you're still not really sure if he's really growing impatient or it's just your cloud-minded self blaming him for whatever's going to happen. You can sense an eye roll from the back of San’s head, but hey. Can’t help it. You’re having a shit day. “Oh!” you exclaim, surging through your veins are another set of adrenaline rushing to power-up your sweet, forced, smile after noticing how pissed off the boy in front of you is getting. “Well, then, you can just hang around. Sorry, it was very rude of me.”

San finally comes through with said eye roll, collapsing back onto a seat - in front of you this time, not beside, since he doesn’t want to get even more pissed off - before his right hand goes to massage his temples, and you decide to end this whole conversation with you having the last few lines. That's the only way to assert dominance with smart people, right?

“But I’m really  _ not  _ lonely, you know?”

Which set him right off, as you expected. “You-” he squirms for a while, trying to not slam his hand onto the table, but proceeding with doing so anyways. Your table rattled, and you stayed unbothered, holding onto your pencil that is now rolling off the desk. “Why are you… doing this? Avoiding me? Did I do something wrong?  _ Tell me _ ,” San pulls your sleeve softly, trying to make you look at him. Those words made you want to pull another trigger, and by this time of the day, you remember nothing about the guilt eating you up from shooting your bullets at a wrong time and the wrong place like you did to Wooyoung.

“Did  _ you  _ do something wrong?” _ here we go again. _

“San - if you want a whole  _ list  _ of the things that went wrong with you, I can give you exactly that. You know what, I can do it without even having to look at the list I have carefully set just to make you feel guilty. Each and every one of them is that significant and life-changing for me, even though I’m sure you have no idea what I’m going on about,” you lift your hand to slam both of them against the table before you turn around to face him again. “In fact, it’s not just you. But it doesn’t matter.”

_ No, no, you have to stop this and ask for him to forgive you. _

“You, this whole town, everyone I know,” you stop to breathe. “You’re all horrible. You’re all worthless, and-”

_ I said stop it. _

The stream of nasty words halts to a stop as you listen to the tiny voice inside your head you’ve been ignoring this whole morning, it has been screaming and begging for everything to stop since you met Wooyoung a day ago - and you had no idea that ignoring the tiny and seemingly pure voice would cause;  _ this _ . Oh no. You did it again.

He’s standing in front of you. Now that anger no longer cloud your judgement, you can see him clearer, see him  _ differently.  _ His eyes are opened wider than you have ever seen, showing off the beautiful brownish colour of his irises. You wished you could see it in some other circumstances. His nostrils are flaring with anger and confusion, but it doesn’t look like he’s angry at you. More like; of himself? 

There are tears forming in the corners of his eyes, and now he’s stepping away from you, the sound echoing in the depths of your soul.

_ You fool. You tilted your own board game. _

_ And now he’s not even going to go down with you. _

You didn’t know where all your accusations came from. San has never hurt you, at all - in fact you've only talked to him a couple of rare times when the two of you aren't intoxicated by the smoke puffing out of your lips or the cold and runny liquid injected into your veins; but it was all very intriguing. Very calm, open minded, understanding.

But you knew you could manipulate it.  You and your cold hearted self.

The way you see it, this is just another one of your episodes. One of them in which you bail on someone who could've been a friend, who could've been something more, someone who could care. You don't want anyone to care. If they care, they'll know it's not your fault. If they care, they'll assure you that you're not the most horrible person in this universe - and you don't want them to. 

But they're all just so easy to read. So easy to change, so easy to mold into something else they've never even done before.  _ Too easy. _

You only ever talked to the students roaming around the detention room after all, and none of them are sober most of the time. They're all way too caught up in their own problems and mistakes, and that makes a perfect clean slate. They remember nothing, they feel nothing - most of the time - and they won't hold a grudge against you.

You can hold one against them, though.

It was nice for a while. You thrive off the feeling of making someone look almost apologetic and sad for whatever the fuck they have done against you, when in reality they did nothing at all. You love it when someone relate to your sad, guilty self. It makes you feel less. . .monstrous.

It's not like that with Choi San, though - weirdly enough - and you can't even tell why.

"What," came out of his lips with his next intake of breath. "Can you tell us. . .what we did?"

"No!"  _ This son of a bitch,  _ you think to yourself, slowly flying towards anger.  _ Why can't he just leave? _

"I can't tell you what happened if nothing happened, just leave me alone!" Your fingers thread their way through your hair, tugging on them in a frustrating manner as if that could make the voices quiet down. The voices, these goddamn voices. "Leave! Get out of the classroom and leave!"

You saw tiny bits and pieces of how San dodges the books and papers you threw at him, but most of them are fogged and covered by the clouds of tears forming around you, and you feel like you're drowning. A bit too much, it all became a bit too much - until you feel two arms snaking around you, pulling you into a warm hug.

"Fuck," San's voice slips in between your loud sobs, only audible because you're so close to his chest, sobbing into the flannel with the scent of weed stronger than anything you've smelled before. Now you're not sure if you're getting dizzy and calm from the tinge of illegal drug or because San's arm is wrapped around you. "I should've known sooner," he continues, but there's nothing you want more than to just sleep.

Know what? There's nothing to know.

"Hey, hey, hey, it's okay. I'm here for you, okay? Let's go."

It occurs to you only when the two of you mounted into the creaking vintage thing that is also called Choi San's car, only occurs to you when you see the messily painted uniforms and half-ripped jeans hanging by the window only to your left, and it made you inhale the scent of some other suspicious illegal drugs and things alike to it when you gasp in realization.

"Oh," you laugh, nose still blocked from how long you've been crying. "That's right. How's the graduation?"

San made a face, and that's enough response for a question you barely even realized coming out of yourself. He didn't think you'd ask about it, surely enough, reading from how he took one look at you before he goes back to driving. Very, very, focused driving. "Fine. I guess? Didn't even know how I graduated, and why they chose Lee Minho as Valedictorian is even more of a mystery, but-"

"Holy shit - Lee Minho? They just choose whoever these days, huh?"

"That's what I said, too," San cackles, running a hand through his hair. "But he did make a point by saying,  _ 'I deserve to be whatever this  _ is _ , since. . .there's dick in it. Right? There's dick in- in Valedi- I don't even know how to spell it. Hence, so, therefore, I am the chosen one,'  _ or something along those lines?"

You return the laugh with a snort, since it sounds more like San's whole world was changed by Minho's very drunk speech instead of him only finding it a little bit funny. There's no way someone remembers each and every word from someone's speech featured by the exact same way the person said it if the speech didn't change your life. Lee Minho is truly something.

"Truly life changing," you say, making San's head turns back to look at you. There's that same smile on his face that you first saw when you called him out on his addictions a few years ago - the same smile that made you fall into this dysfunctional sort of crush, the sort of crush that will eat you up alive and or get you entangled in a murder mystery sooner or later. You don't even know why you made that illustration, what the fuck?

By this time, you realize how far off from your house the two of you are but you're willing enough to not stop San, or tell him how shady he's being. You're used to it; growing up surrounded by fights and mentally unstable people telling you how much of a demon you are and how much they'd slit your throat open at any given chance, and then meeting a boy like Wooyoung who are exactly the same - all you had to do was pull a little trigger and there he goes; blending in like all the other sadistic hoes in your life.

You wonder how much it'll take for San to curl into a ball and roll down the same road. Maybe this is it, maybe this is his psychotic awakening and it's all caused by you, yet again. What an honor.

San curses under his breath, though, out of nowhere - and it almost startles you, if you weren't already startled by something else. You can see a mixture of blue and red flashing lights from the mirror, and it's almost pretty, so long as you don't squint and try to figure out what it is. You figured out what it is, though, since you're neither dumb or drunk, and now the adrenaline is rushing past your veins as you pay attention to the boy beside you trying his best to runaway from them.

The police.

"Why the fuck are we followed by a police car, Choi San?" You ask, hand fumbling with the seatbelts and anything your hand can get a grip on. Maybe you're dreaming, but there's a split second where you can feel San's eyes on yours, a bit mad and or confused - but it was gone as soon as it was there. So you didn't think too much of it, and the silence that follows were prove that it's once again, not yours, but San's fault. "Did they caught you stealing weed or something? God - I told you to tone it down on the-"

_ Addiction _ , you were about to say addiction, but a shocked gasp left your mouth instead when San took a sharp turn to the left - alarming the police car behind you as they turn on their sirenes. Great, they're now producing sounds. You massage your left temple, bumped onto the side of the window from how sudden your friend over here turned away to escape the police car - and the urge to laugh went over you.

It's a hearty laugh, one you haven't done in quite a while since your life is pretty much a big bundle of mess and all you do is complain and complain without ever seeing what's good in it without complaining and more of being grateful. In conclusion, it felt kinda good, laughing like that - and you notice how the corner of San's lips curl upwards a little bit from hearing it. "You little shit I could've died!" You complained, still laughing from the painful impact the speed had on your poor head.

"How the fuck is that my fault? You're just not professional," he answers in between all the 'looking into the rearview mirror' and 'trying to go faster', and it made the car accelerates its speed enough to make you lay flat onto the chair, breath taken away in more ways than one.

"Professional? Oh you've been chased by a lot of them? That's how  _ you're  _ a professional-"

"Well at least this time I'm not running away for my own sake," he mumbles, visibly frowning at himself in fear of you understanding what he means behind what he just said.

And you do.

You stop suffocating yourself with laughs, instead letting your right hand grip on his chair - unsure if your hand is turning white from the curiosity or you trying to balance yourself in the rickety, speeding car.

"What?" You whisper, almost not audible. "Wh- who are you- running away for, then?"

San almost looks confused, if he can do so while concentrating on the road ahead of them. "Doll, are you playing dumb on me, or-"

"Who the fuck are you doing this for, Choi San?!"

You lashing out on him made him heave a sigh, turning into another corner, now a bit smaller than the other ones you've all been through - and he gave you a millisecond glance.

"For you, you idiot," he replies, not looking into your eyes.

.

"You killed your mother, didn't you?"

**Author's Note:**

> big yikes i came back from the dead with this and none of the other series i'm working on? seems legit:)  
it has been a horrible week in my life, though, i just lost my dog and a bunch of other heartbreaking things happened, so:(  
so sorry i can only bring this to the table, i could've done so much better.


End file.
